MOSCOW— With Kiev's new government weak and in disarray, Russia has made an aggressive move into Crimea following a unanimous vote by Russia's upper house of parliament Saturday, which gave President Vladimir Putin a green light to send troops to Ukraine without specifying where.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk is warning Russia that a continued military intervention will mean war between the neighboring countries; acting Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchynov said he put the country's armed forces on combat alert following Saturday's vote, during which Russian legislators also asked Putin to withdraw Moscow's ambassador to Washington.

Russian legislators said they were insulted by U.S. President Barack Obama's statement on Ukraine Friday, in which Obama said the U.S. is "deeply concerned by reports of military movements taken by the Russian Federation inside of Ukraine."

Obama went on to say there would be "costs for any military intervention in Ukraine."

The White House says Obama held a 90 minute phone conversation with Putin Saturday, in which he expressed deep concern for what the United States calls a clear violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and international law.

Obama administration officials also say the United States is suspending participation in meetings to prepare for the G8 economic summit later this year in Sochi, Russia, which recently hosted the Winter Olympic Games.

According to Russian news agencies, Putin told the U.S. president that Moscow reserves the right to protect Russian speakers if there is violence in Crimea or eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine and Russia continue their standoff over Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula, where the movement of troops and vehicles, believed to be Russian military, has increased. VOA's Elizabeth Arrott has more from Crimea's regional capital, Simferopol.

On Thursday, armed Russian-speaking men invaded Crimea's parliament. At gunpoint, a slim majority elected Aksenov.

UN calls for 'cool heads'

Saturday's vote by Russia’s parliament triggered an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council, during which Yuriy Sergeyev, Ukrainian Ambassador to the United Nations, said15,000 Russian troops are already in Crimea and that their numbers are “increasing every hour.” Sergeyev said his country has called upon the world deliberative body to do everything possible to stop what he called the aggression.

He told reporters after the meeting that Kiev is willing to work with Moscow about its concerns, but must pull back its troops.

“We are ready for consultations, but what we demand is all the troops to be withdrawn; immediately withdrawn, because they are illegally present there," he said.

Russia earlier rejected bilateral talks with Ukraine’s new government. Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said Western governments were trying to “whip up” the situation in Ukraine over preceding months, encouraging protesters who were angry about the previous government’s decision not to sign an association agreement with the European Union.

On Russian troops, Churkin told the council that President Putin had asked parliament for the possibility of the use of force in Ukraine, but that Putin has not yet acted on its approval.

Moscow has not confirmed new troop deployments, saying only that current movements are in conformity with existing bilateral agreements to protect its naval base at Sevastopol in Crimea.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in taped remarks after speaking with Putin by phone Saturday that “cool heads must prevail and dialogue must be the only tool in ending this crisis," while Security Council members officially called for de-escalation of tensions and international mediation to end the crisis.

NATO announced Saturday that its ambassadors will meet Sunday in Brussels to discuss the escalating crisis. A meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission is scheduled as well.

'Soviet strategy'

In Moscow, political analyst Pavel Felgenhauer says Moscow is following a political strategy that worked well in the Soviet era.

"This is from the Russian textbook — there is nothing new at all," he said, referring to Soviet-era invasions. "It happened in Afghanistan. It happened in Hungary."

In those cases, Soviet troops invaded countries after appeals by leaders installed by the Kremlin.

In Crimea, Moscow acted before the nicety of an appeal by the region's new prime minister — and during a period with high political tension, but little violence.

Starting Friday, Russian army troops took over Crimea's three airports, and military helicopters and transport planes shuttled troops and supplies into the peninsula. Russian soldiers and Navy ships blockaded Ukrainian military bases. Armed checkpoints manned by Russian-speaking men now control the sole highway from the mainland to the peninsula. Russian consular officials started distributing Russian passports to policemen in Crimea.

"Russia has started blatant aggression against Ukraine under the guise of military exercises," said Ukraine's interim President Oleksandr Turchynov. "The Russian Federation has sent troops to Crimea, which have not only seized the Crimean parliament and the Council of Ministers but are also trying to take control of communication facilities and the bases where the servicemen are stationed."

Only two months ago, Russian state television praised Ukrainians as their Slavic brothers. In a total switch, state television now describes Ukraine as a country controlled by "fascist nationalists." Television screens show videos of Russian army tanks churning through mud, part of a 150,000-man military exercise across the border from eastern Ukraine.

Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, says the military exercise is designed to tell Kiev and the West to back off from Russian-speaking areas of Ukraine.

"The timing of this is clearly sending a message to the people in Kiev — don't go too far, don't try to establish 'constitutional order' in Crimea, don't intervene by force in Eastern Ukraine," he said in a conference call. "It's also, I think, a message to Washington and NATO, in the sense that Russia is prepared to defend its interests in this part of the world."

Some regional analysts warn that Russia may be biting off more than it can chew.

"Right now our peacekeeping units are going to be tied down in Crimea, and we don't have that many peacekeeping units," said Felgenhauer who specializes in military analysis.

And it is unclear how deep the support is in Crimea for Russian annexation. The prime minister says he will hold a referendum on Crimea's status on March 30.

The majority of Crimea's 2 million people are native Russian speakers, but Kiev has ruled Crimea for nearly 70 years. A large portion of inhabitants identify themselves as Russian speaking Ukrainians.

In addition, Muslim Tatars make up 15 percent of Crimea's population. During the first half of the 20th century Kremlin policies killed about half the population — through famine in the 1920s and 1930s and mass deportation in 1944. As a result, Crimean Tatars strongly oppose rule by Moscow.

If Russia's occupation turns violent, Turkey could step in to defend the Tatars. The simplest way would to be close the Bosphorus strait, the exit route for about one third of Russia's oil exports.

Felgenhauer said of the Turkish government: "They could get rather nasty with Russia. They could put serious pressure on the Russian government."

Ukraine's central government has its own levers. It could cut off a water pipe from the continent that is a primary source of drinking water to Crimea's arid north. Tourism, the economic mainstay for much of Crimea's population, could plummet if political tensions over sovereignty remain high.

And Russia can expect sanctions from the West, its major trading partner.

For starters, Western leaders would probably boycott the June summit of G8 countries. President Putin is planning to host the summit in Sochi, which lies only 400 kilometers across the Black Sea from Crimea.

"It's almost certain that Putin has a large, or several large, bank accounts of his own, and I would imagine that those are going to get frozen," Brown said. "So when they say there are going to be costs, it's not going to be to the Russian people. It's more along the lines it's going to be the Russian leadership personally."

While Saturday's White House statement said the president told Putin the U.S. would suspend its participation in preparatory meetings for the Group of Eight (G8) summit, Obama and his aides are reported to have discussed canceling his trip to the summit altogether, or even kicking Russia out of the G8.

Scrapping a possible trade agreement with Moscow may be another alternative.

U.S. leverage is diminished by the need for Russia's help in negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran and working to end Syria's war. Also, the U.S. uses Russian supply routes to move troops and equipment out of Afghanistan.

So far, the possible costs have not been enough to discourage Putin from sending Russian troops to Ukraine.

Yanukovych speech

Ukraine's fugitive president Viktor Yanukovych speaks at a news conference in Rostov-on-Don, a city in southern Russia, Feb. 28, 2014.

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Ukraine's fugitive president Viktor Yanukovych speaks at a news conference in Rostov-on-Don, a city in southern Russia, Feb. 28, 2014.

On Friday, ousted Urkrainian President Yanukovych resurfaced in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don where he held a news conference, calling on his opponents to stop what he called the "horrible lawlessness" in Ukraine.

Ukrainians had mixed reactions to this first public appearance of Yanukovych who fled Kiev last week.

While Kiv and western Ukraine have risen up against Yanukovych, he remains popular in the Russian-speaking eastern and southern regions where economic and cultural ties with Russia remain strong.

His remarks were broadcast around the country on giant television screens.

Galina Shurko, resident of the western Ukraine city of Lviv, is not a supporter of the ousted leader.

"You know, we are really surprised that he's still saying something," said Shurko. "We don't even like to listen to him because of all this pain in our hearts and everything that he has done to Ukraine."

Meanwhile, Karina, a resident of the northeastern city of Kharkiv, said Yanukovych's re-surfacing in Russia was the logical thing to do.

"Sorry, but what is Viktor Yanukovych to do when some strange people came to power and simply act as some junkies? What should he do? Where should he go? He could have been killed, as simple as that, of course he went to Rostov-on-Don," she said.

Lena Kleshevnykova, another resident of Kharkiv — Ukraine's second largest city — is a staunch supporter of the Yanukovych.

"I still consider him our president because the new government came to power in an unlawful way, with military aggression," said Kleshevnykova.

Some information for this report was provided by VOA correspondent Elizabeth Arrott reporting from Simferopol, VOA correspondent Kent Klein reporting from Washngton, and VOA correspondent Margaret Besheer reporint from the United Nations.

Comments page of 3

I'm Russian and I fully understand that russian military forces that shown on TV can look like Russia invades Ukraine but it's not true. We watched how pro-american politics in Ukraine prepare this revolution like in Syria, Libya and other countries and couldn't understand why americans think that they can invade other countries and get away with it. I'm not talking about american citizens, it's not their fault but I'm talking about dirty politicians who wanted this wars to make money or to bring their own man to the president's chair.

Ukrainian people is like brothers to us, russians and we cannot just watch when nazi came to governance using armed forces and threat russian speaking citizens of Ukraine. You can find on their internet pages that they calling to kill russian speaking citizens of Ukraine in public! So we (russians) just want protect these people from nazi that calling to such things. We don't want to agressively invade Ukraine - we just want to protect innocent people from beeing killed.

Many russians have relatives there also. We are people like everbody else who just want people who they love to live. Just imagine how would you react if somebody try to kill you brother or mother just because they speak another language? Would you just stay and watch? I think a man who has a heart or something human inside cannot ignore such things.

by: David Westfall from: United States

March 02, 2014 8:51 AM

"The Anatomy of Revolution" all over again? Dictator tossed out, hopeful moderates assume control for a brief period, only to be ousted and followed by an even more tyrannical regime? For Ukraine and eastern Europe, I hope not.

by: Emmanuel from: Nigeria

March 02, 2014 3:39 AM

The russian federation should just let the ukrainians live in peace, they are after them because of their selfish interest. Just because they left the President Putin thinks using aggression will bring them crawling back to them. If the russian military strikes, i advise the ukrainian military to strike back harder.

by: Mike from: USA

March 02, 2014 3:38 AM

Russia is an enemy of the United States and the entire Western world. Now under the leadership of Putin-moron Russia becomes an enemy of Ukraine. Russia's aggression against Ukraine should have catastrophic consequences for Russia. Therefore, Mr. Obama needs to move from words to action: to impose economic and political sanctions against Russia, Russia's exclusion from international organizations, including Georgia into NATO, and more.

by: Haron from: Afghanistan

March 02, 2014 3:08 AM

as my opinion Russian troops must be exist in Ukraine and Crimea. because, Ukraine economic is tightly connected with Russian economic. no country around the world can improve Ukraine economic unless Russia don't progress that. I have heard the Obama statement from TV about Russia. really it was comic for me the country which frightened with economic crisis warn another country that any action could take costs.leave two allied countries to live in a peace and rest of happiness. any country has their own territorial to accept or reject another country as ally. otherwise everyone will feel that West countries are hungry and their eyes are close to the bread and food of Ukraine due to economic crisis in West.

by: Artur from: Kyiv

March 02, 2014 1:45 AM

USA,EU and NATO must help Ukraine!!! Ukrainians showed loyalty to western powers and want to be a part of EU. If western civilization keeps silence or its neutrality about this crisis, Russia will win and that all eastern Europe will be under tyranny of Putin.

by: Patsokari from: Abua

March 02, 2014 12:44 AM

I think the Russian Govt. can protect it citizen in any part of the world.

by: mig from: texas

March 02, 2014 12:37 AM

The Ukrainian army does not follow orders from street tugs

by: Mark from: Virginia

March 01, 2014 7:13 PM

This is going to destroy the Ukraine, absolutely demolish the whole of the country...and the ordinary citizen not involved in all this political bickering and back-biting, is going to take the brunt of it, right on the chin. If everyone has thought that the recent uprisings and violence was over, well, get ready for Round Two, which will be bloodier and more violent than anyone can imagine.Russia is not going to give up control of its 'half' of the Ukrainian pie, and the pro-western Ukrainians will not give up theirs. This is going to degenerate very quickly into a civil war that will escalate into a regional brawl involving other countries (Turkey, at the least). It is almost ironic, that this is almost how exactly World War I began, except that in place of an assassination, we have a deposed leader.. and the most ironic fact of all is that World War I began exactly 100 years ago (1914...2014).This is going to get ugly, if the marbles continue to roll the way they have been rolling. Cooler heads MUST prevail, or blood will start flowing. It saddens my heart to even contemplate what is about to happen. History does repeat itself, and unfortunately, this is not a repeat anyone wants to see happen.

by: John Cox from: Aucklan

March 01, 2014 7:06 PM

Under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum Russia agreed to respect Ukrainian territorial integrity, and not to use economic pressure. It has been violating the latter for some time, with no criticism or response from the USA. Putin obviously felt he could go further.

However under the agreement the US, Russia and the UK "reaffirm their commitment to seek immediate United Nations Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine,...if Ukraine should become a victim of an act of aggression".

The USA and UK are now obliged to act against Russian aggression. If they don't do so they will lose all credibility. Putin knew that Obama was too much of a coward to risk war with Russia, and would prefer to see the USA humiliated. As someone once said of another politician, he is no Kennedy.

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